Dear You
by watevr i want
Summary: A small duo of letters that tell the tragic tale of a love confessed only in death and the letters Sharon Raydor leaves her every year. Warning: major character death.
1. From Brenda to Sharon

Dear you,

I wish I had been someone who you were friends with, but I guess it's too late for that now. I'm dying. There is no hope, and I know I have to accept that. But right now, as I write this, it seems harder than ever.

I'm too weak to call, not that I can't, but if I do I don't know that I will get the peace I wish for.

Don't tell 'our' boys until I'm gone. I don't know that I could keep myself together.

I wish you were here, beside me, holding my hand in yours. I wish I was the one you loved. I wish that before I am gone I will get to taste your lips. I wish that I wasn't so selfish.

I'm sorry, so sorry.

I love you, and this is so unfair to you, but I couldn't go without telling you first. So, Sharon Marie Raydor, I am hopelessly in love with you, and I am dying.

I am not asking for your love in return, I just had to let you know.


	2. From Sharon to Brenda

Dear you,

I knew that from the moment I walked in to that hospital you were trouble, and I knew I liked it. Me, straight laced stick up her ass Raydor (yes, I am aware you all say that behind my back), liked that you were just the opposite. But more to the point, you, you with the innocent sweet southern voice, felt it too. You played with it! In the morgue, with those damn pistols, and during the race for chief, and every other time you felt it. You encouraged it, you, you with the husband still in the picture, we're egging it on, trying to push it so far we wouldn't be able to go back. And... And now you're divorced, and... I'm the reason why.

Sure he signed the papers without complaint, why wouldn't he? You were trouble.

My uniform is hanging in the other room, my cover is waiting, and my hair's already in its bun.

It seems like it was so long ago that I walked into the hospital. So long ago that I saw just how much trouble you would be. So long ago that we felt the electricity in that morgue. So long ago that you wore that red dress. So long ago that you... Left.

But you were Brenda Leigh Johnson, you had enemies, you made enemies. You were the best there was... and you had to go.

And now, now I realize that during all those months I somehow, that somehow I ended up loving you.

I love you, three simple words that I came to realize last night, means nothing now, because you were Brenda Leigh Johnson and I am supposed to attend you funeral in a few hours. I love you, and in a little while I am going to have to pretend that I don't, I'm going to have to hide the tears I still long to shed for you, I'm going to have to be your Cap'n Raydor, as you once called me, and for once I don't want to be me.


	3. The first year without you

Dear you,

It's been one year since you died, and I still feel the emptiness you left in me. There is an ache in my chest, and some days I almost wish I had never met you. Others it seems I have no will to live.

Pope is still chief, though Taylor gave a press conference on a classified case that got him fired in July. Andy, Tao, Sanchez, and Buzz are still in the unit but Provenza retired last month after he had a heart attack. I got promoted to commander just after you died. The best news is Gabriel is back with the all still miss you. I miss you.

It's a Wednesday and the cemetery is nearly empty. There are flowers overflowing around your headstone. There are lilies, daffodils, honeysuckle, roses, an even a few chrysanthemums. I think you would have liked it. There is a phrase in Russian right below your name. I don't know what it means but I'm sure you would have.

I still love you. I can't stop it seems. It is like the year never passed, like it's still the day of your funeral.

I wonder, if you had lived would I have ever realized just how much I love you? I wonder every night if we could have been happy.


	4. The second year without you

Dear you,

It's been two years since you died and I'm all alone now. Rusty has gone away to college now and I am alone. It still seems like your funeral was just moments ago.

We lost Provenza last week. The boys miss you both. Especially you.  
I got promoted to deputy chief a few months ago. Pope is still chief. Tao left three months ago to head his own SID unit, and I couldn't be happier for him. He's a captain now and Gabriel's a lieutenant.

Sanchez got married just after my last letter to you in a well as you would call it, a shotgun wedding. His beautiful bride is named Maria. Se gave birth to a lovely little girl they named Brenda Mariana Sanchez. She's so pretty.  
David is engaged, again. We are all hoping this one sticks. She seems lovely, a nice girl named Alyssa. She isn't an attorney but rather a doctor. Little Brenda's, as we call her, pediatrician in fact.

Tao's boy went off to college this year too. On a full scholarship no less.  
I miss you. I'm beginning to think I will always feel the emptiness. Always feel the gaping hole in my chest.

Life keeps moving, taking me with it but I would give anything to go back to those last days before the leukemia claimed your life. I would give anything to have told you how I feel about you before you died. I love you Brenda.


	5. The third year without you

Dear you,

It's been three years since you died. Three long painful years. 156 weeks without your southern charm. 1,095 days without your smile. It's been so long.

Gabriel's wedding is in four months. It's all he's been talking about for over a year now. He was so exited he asked me to help him pick out a ring, something I adamantly refused to do.

Sanchez's little girl is getting so big. Little Brenda is on the verge of starting to crawl, though if she's a stubborn as you I think she'll walk before she crawls.

Brenda, your daddy is dead. His cancer came out of remission and the treatment killed him. I'm so sorry.

I need you. I need the joy that you radiated when you were happy. I need you careless behavior towards criminals and compassion for victims. I need the trouble you were. I need you.

You grave still has flowers by it, five different bouquets. One from me and one from each of the boys. We all come and see you every year, but some how we never run into one another.

Brenda it's three years later and I'm still grieving your death. What ifs still race through my mind at night and my bed, my house, my life feels empty. The hole in my heart grows wider every year, the whole in my life is a never ending chasm.


	6. The fourth year without you

Dear you,

It's been four years since you left me here, alone in the land of the living. It's hard to believe it's been four years. It seems like an eternity has passed.  
Gabriel's wedding was perfect the happy couple seems more in love now than ever. They are even thinking of maybe having a child soon.

Little Brenda is a very vivacious three year old now and her attitude is very similar to that of her name sake.

I was right she did take a step before she crawled. Julio loves her very dearly and his wife is expecting their second child. There is a pool on whether it's a boy or a girl ( I have a Franklin on a boy).

My own children can't fathom why your death affects me so. They ask why and I evade their questions. I don't know how to tell them that I fell in love with a woman. I just don't.

My love for you grows stronger with each year. It tears the hole in my heart grow wider. It makes the emptiness grow stronger.

With recent break throughs in cancer treatment I now wonder if we had known then what we know now would you still be alive? It's the question that I ask myself constantly. I wonder whether we could have had a life together. It's like the first year all over again, the what ifs.

I love you Brenda Leigh.


	7. The fifth year without you

Dear you,

I lost you five years ago. I have been lost without you for the last half a decade.

In the last five years you have missed two deaths, two weddings, two graduations from college, and three babies entering the world. Julio is now the proud father of a baby boy named Jesus. David is now a father to a beautiful baby girl they named Helen Brenda Gabriel, to avoid confusion.

Little Brenda is going strong and has just started pre-k. She reminds every one of you. She's just so stubborn.

Flynn is retiring at the start of the new year, after his sixty fourth birthday.

My sixtieth birthday is only five months away and I wish you were here to celebrate it with me. It will be another day, another celebration without you. Without the chaos you bring.

It's said that only time can heal a wounded heart, so I have only one question. How long will it take my heart to heal from the hole you tore in it? How long will I face more days than not with an aching heart? How many more times will I wake from a dream with your name on my lips?


End file.
